Oswego school board to sue over the Nine Mile Unit I tax agreement

View full sizeDavid Lassman / The Post-Standard, 2001Aerial view of the two Nine Mile Point nuclear power plants, in Scriba, looking north towards Lake Ontario. Unit one is on the left.

Oswego, NY -- The Oswego school board decided Monday night to move ahead with a lawsuit concerning the tax agreement for Nine Mile Point Unit I.

The board voted to hire real estate and assessment lawyer Paul Sheppard, of Binghamton. He will be paid an hourly rate that has not been set as of yet.

The only board member to vote against the lawsuit and hiring Sheppard was James Tschudy. Voting for the measure were Samuel Tripp, John Dunsmoor, Kathleen Allen, Thomas DeCastro, Francis Hoefer and board President William “Dave” White.

Sheppard, board members and administration were a bit mum on exactly who is being sued and what the lawsuit is about. When asked if the board was suing the Scriba Board of Assessment Review, Sheppard said “that remains to be seen.”

The Board of Assessment Review recently set an assessment for Unit I of $280 million. With this, Constellation would pay the school district about $6 million for 2010-11.

Sheppard did say the lawsuit is about the tax agreement itself.

Officials with the school district, Scriba and Oswego County negotiated a tentative one-year tax agreement with Constellation Energy Nuclear Group in May. That agreement had to be approved by the school district, Scriba and county.

Scriba’s town board and the county Legislature approved the tax plan. The school board rejected it. Scriba and the county decided to honor the agreement and then the Scriba Board of Assessment Review set the assessment to be used to compute the tax payment for the school district.

Sheppard asked “if you need everybody to agree” and not everyone does, how can you still go ahead with the agreement?

When the school board voted down the tax agreement, Scriba town attorney Kevin Caraccioli said there were three scenarios that could occur:

• Try to convince the school board to reconsider,

• Put Nine Mile Point Unit I on the tax rolls and have the parties “duke it out in court;” or

• Have Scriba and the county abide by the agreement and have the Scriba Board of Assessment and Review set an assessment that would give the school district the amount it would receive if the school board approved the tax agreement.